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August 19, 2010

G122: Angels 7, Red Sox 2

Santana (7-4-2-4-1, 105) shut down the Sox, Hideki Matsui clubbed a three-run home run off Beckett (6.1-7-6-2-6, 105) , and Manny Declarmen further buried the Sox by walking three of his four batters in the seventh.

Boston had only two hits through the first seven innings: Marco Scutaro's single to begin the first and David Ortiz's solo homer with one out in the fourth.

Beckett pitched well through 5.1 innings, allowing only two hits and one walk. But the roof fell in very quickly: Macier Izturis doubled to right, Alberto Callaspo doubled to left-center, Torii Hunter singled off Adrian Beltre's glove at third, and Shemp hit a dong to right-center.

In the seventh, Beckett struck out Jeff Mathis, but allowed a single to Bourjos and then walked Bobby Abreu. MDC came in and walked Izturis to load the bases. He got Callaspo to geround out to third, but a run scored. Then Delcarmen walked Hunter to re-load the bases and walked Matsui to force in a run. Scott Atchison then surrendered an RBI single to Howie Kendrick.

The Yankees beat the Tigers 11-5 this afternoon. The Rays lost to the A's 4-3.

Update, 5:28 PM: Dustin Pedroia's left foot is sore. Jed Lowrie will take his place.

Another day, another player to the DL: Today it's Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who will be replaced by Dusty Brown.

1951 - Eddie Gaedel -- standing 3' 7" and wearing # 1/8 -- walks on four pitches in his only major league appearance, for Bill Veeck's St. Louis Browns. His contract is voided two days later.

1969 - John Hollison, the last surviving major league pitcher to throw from a mound 50 feet from home plate, dies in Chicago at age 99. He pitched in one game for the Chicago Colts in 1892.

1970 - The White Sox, trailing 5-2, rally for 11 runs in the top of the ninth inning and defeat the Red Sox 13-5 at Fenway Park.

1982 - Atlanta's Pascual Perez, scheduled to start against the Expos, can't find his way off the interstate to the ballpark. He circles the city three times before running out of gas. Perez later receives a team jacket with "I-285" on it.

I am not sure teaching at a Community College is really academia. It's not university research, so the air isn't quite so rare. There are a lot more issues with nuts and bolts of teaching and managing students than there are high-minded ideas, and when there is the latter, it's not usually incomprehensibly high minded. This is not good or bad, just how I see it.

But my experience of my first week signals quite a change. Being a part timer and running off downtown to the other job constantly was kind of a pain in the ass. The less structured is nice, and certainly the other faculty are seeing me both more often and with more familiarity already.

Zen, I also teach students who were generally not the top students in high school or college. I actually enjoy them more than I probably would their richer, more intellectual peers. They have a grasp on reality that is refreshing.

So, only clean inning for Cap'n Kickass so far, but at the same time, none with more than 1 baserunner. Acceptable....That is, of course, assuming we can get off our offensive asses and score a run or 5.

Damn, it does seem like Josh can steam along just fine for quite a while, but when he gets in a jam there is usually scoring involved. Of course, that's true of almost every pitcher, but you'd kind of like for your "ace" to be able to work his way out of it more often than not

Research is overrated, IMHO. There is a review of a book in today's NYTimes written by two professors (I am blanking on the names) about what is wrong with higher education. One of their key points is that research has sapped resources away from undergraduate education. The reviewer disagrees, but he is the president of GW.

I am sure scientific research is worthwhile, but most academic scholarship, including my own, is nothing but mental masturbation and a means to tenure. It adds little that benefits society.

While I remain an optimist and will at least be hopeful until the final out - there is no denying that MDC's shitty performance means "getting a couple back here" does NOT put us right back in this game. We need some "heroics" and those are harder to come by